A BARRISTER sobbed as she was jailed yesterday for posing as an unemployed single mother to get a council flat – despite having two properties of her own and a full-time law career.

Mother-of-two Nadine Wilson-Ellis, 35, had a £30,000 job teaching law full-time at a college in Nottingham where she lived with her husband. But 150 miles away in Bristol, she told officials she was penniless and was given a council flat which she then illegally sub-let for £100 a week.

Wilson-Ellis – who recently qualified as a barrister – made £10,000 from the scam which she used to pay the mortgages on her other homes.

She was only caught out when she asked Bristol City Council for a bigger flat.

Wilson-Ellis – who recently qualified as a barrister – made £10,000 from the scam

Judge Michael Longman jailed her for seven months at Bristol Crown Court after she was earlier found guilty of two offences under the Fraud Act. She had denied the charges.

The council said the scam cost the taxpayer around £35,000 in investigation costs and £39,000 to find another flat for a genuine claimant.

If Wilson-Ellis had not been caught she would eventually have qualified for the right to buy a larger council house in Bristol, depriving a family in need of much sought-after social housing.